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QUESTION: Black clubwomen creating institutions to shelter Black juvenile delinquents in 1800s?

Submitted by Anonymooose on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 11:56am
question / pregunta: 

In the 1800s, Black clubwomen's federations (or state federations of colored women's clubs) in Delaware, Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, Virginia and Alabama created institutions to shelter Black juvenile delinquents and divert them from going to (state-run) adult prisons. Where would I find more detailed (and publicly-accessible) information about these efforts?

Answers

Answer posted by: Meridith

Hi Vicki,

Here are a few things to get you started. The first link is to the publicly available article “Black Club Women and Child Welfare: Lessons for Modern Reform.”


http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/323/Roberts.pdf

This site provides information about the General Federation of Women's Clubs

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/organizations-federation.html

The next item is a book, which is not available online but, is available though New York Public Library.

Southern Ladies, New Women: Race, Region, and Clubwomen in South Carolina 1890-1930 by Joan Marie Johnson.

These two articles are available through an article database called JSTOR, which is also available through NYPL. You can give these citations to a librarian and he or she should be able to get them for you.

“Black Feminism in Indiana, 1893-1933” by Erlene Stetson

“Welfare and the Role of Women: The Juvenile Court Movement” by Elizabeth J. Clapp

I saw several other similar articles, but most of what I found was not publicly available, though you should be able to access them through NYPL. If this is an option that appeals to you let me know and I can post some more.

Answer posted by: ellenb

All of the below historical texts are available at Archive.org American Libraries. There are certainly more 19th century tracts and pamphlets published in the same vein that have not yet been made available digitally.

Anthropological investigations on one thousand white and colored children of both sexes, the inmates of the New York juvenile asylum, with additional notes on one hundred colored children of the New York colored asylum - Hrdlicka, Ales, 1869-1943
http://www.archive.org/details/anthropologicali00hrdlrich

The colored people of Chicago : an investigation made for the Juvenile Protective Association, by A.P. Drucker, Sophia Boaz, A.L. Harris [and] Miriam Schaffner / by Louise De Koven Bowen http://www.archive.org/details/coloredpeopleofc00bowe

Answer posted by: Saoirse

You might be interested in the following two articles:

1. Evette Perry, T. and Davis-Maye, D. (2007) Bein' Womanish: Womanist Efforts in Child Saving During the Progressive Era: The Founding of Mt. Meigs Reformatory. Affilia, 22(2), 209- 219.

Abstract:

This article highlights the establishment by the Alabama Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1907 of Alabama’s first and only reform school for African American youths, the Mt. Meigs Reformatory for Juvenile Negro Lawbreakers. Recognizing that the issues of African American women and the larger African American community were inextricably linked, courageous 19th-century African American women worked within a womanist ideological framework and harnessed their resources to develop purposeful agendas and creative responses to pressing problems in the African American community. Sorely neglected, this legacy begs for the attention of scholars who recognize the value of unearthing historical fragments to create enriched wholes.

You can get this article using the database SAGE Premier 2007 at any of the following NYPL branches/centers:

· Humanities and Social Sciences Library
· New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
· Science, Industry and Business Library
· Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

http://www.nypl.org/hours/index.cfm?Trg=6

2. Muth B., Gehring, T. et al. (n.d.) Janie Porter Barrett (1865-1948): Exemplary African American correctional educator. Retrieved online Monday, November 30, 2009 from:
http://www.csusb.edu/coe/programs/correctional_ed/documents/jpbarrettfinal.pdf

Pages 8 and 9 of this article mention that in 1913, the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs opened a reformatory school for African-American girls in Virginia. During that time, Janie Porter Barrett was president of the federation.

#1Submitted by ellenb on Sun, 11/29/2009 - 1:11pm.

Black clubwomen creating institutions to shelter Black juvenile

All of the below historical texts are available at Archive.org American Libraries. Continued searching might reveal more sources:

Anthropological investigations on one thousand white and colored children of both sexes, the inmates of the New York juvenile asylum, with additional notes on one hundred colored children of the New York colored asylum - Hrdlicka, Ales, 1869-1943
http://www.archive.org/details/anthropologicali00hrdlrich

The colored people of Chicago : an investigation made for the Juvenile Protective Association, by A.P. Drucker, Sophia Boaz, A.L. Harris [and] Miriam Schaffner / by Louise De Koven Bowen http://www.archive.org/details/coloredpeopleofc00bowe

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